The Pursuit of Happiness

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LETTER FROM CALIFORNIA about televised car chases in Los Angeles. There was a brief period when the rest of America understood life in L.A. On June 17, 1994, 95 million Americans watched the O. J. Simpson pursuit on TV. “The O.J. pursuit fixed once and for all in people's minds how Looney Tunes Los Angeles is about vehicle pursuits,” William Bratton, the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (L.A.P.D.), said. Most pursuits here are much faster and more violent than the Simpson outing: a quarter of them end in a crash, and about 15 each year end in death. Yet Bratton has learned that trying to stop them is tantamount to tampering with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In 2004, California led the nation with 7,321 pursuits, and the majority of them-5,596-took place in L.A. County. Sheriff Leroy Baca attributes the high number of pursuits in L.A. to a shortage of cops and a surplus of “highly mobile idiots.” The L.A. freeways are its public stage, its Colosseum. Pursuits are L.A.'s ultimate reality show, and the aerial inquests afford residents in the Hollywood Hills another way to look down on the poorer, flatter regions, where pursuits tend to originate. People critique the suspects route and revel in the mayhem. Most of the city's televised pursuits begin in a lounge at Van Nuys Airport, in the San Fernando Valley. Here, helicopter pilots and cameramen from five local stations wait to hear about pursuits from police scanners. One Tuesday afternoon in October, Brian Dunn, the cameraman on the KTLA helicopter, got a call that Lindsay Lohan had just got into another car crash. Soon, KTLA's “Skycam” helicopter was circling the accident. Mentions the KTLA pilot Johnny McCool. To achieve classic-pursuit status, you must have long, stringy hair; you must keep going even when all hope for escape is gone; and, having eluded your pursuers, you must then pull into a fast-food joint to be overpowered. If pursuits are doubtful entertainment, they are even shakier as news. Hal Fishman, KTLA's longtime anchor, hates pursuits. One morning, the writer was in a Sheriff's Department helicopter with Deputies Tim Alsky and Mike Granek when a pursuit began. The L.A.P.D. launched its first helicopter in 1956, and KTLA launched its first “telecopter” two years later. The first live pursuit didn't air until 1990, but the pursuit truly came of age in 1992, when five stations interrupted afternoon shows to televise Darren Stroh's arrival in town. The chief dramaturges of this new aerial art form were Bob and Marika Tur. Jeff Wald, the general manager of KTLA, calls himself “the poster boy” for televised pursuits, but even he's amazed by their popularity. Writer watches a pursuit on TV with Dunn and McCool at the Van Nuys Airport. Bratton forbade his officers from pursuing for misdemeanors or traffic violations. Since then, the number of L.A.P.D. pursuits has fallen by 20%. And the L.A. County Sheriff's Department has cut its pursuits by over 40% in the past decade. What no one can explain is why 2004 was a record year for pursuits in L.A. County. To be sure, the California Highway Patrol (C.H.P.), maintains a liberal policy of engagement. The writer trained in high-speed driving one morning with Deputy Edmundo Hummel of the Sheriff's Department. Describes the sensory overload. Describes the 1998 Daniel Jones pursuit, which captured Jones's suicide on TV. KTLA cameraman Martin Clancy says, “You see so much of the mayhem bad people cause that watching street justice…makes everyone feel better.” Last April, in an attempt to shorten the length of pursuits, Bratton adopted C.H.P.'s spike strip and its Pursuit Intervention Technique (PIT). To PIT a car, you creep up beside it, then nudge its rear end so that it revolves 180 degrees and stalls out. Describes a KTLA helicopter view of an S.U.V. pursuit in the Valley.